Meaning
Describing a system or communication protocol where each request is treated independently without retaining session information on the server.
Three examples from work
Architecture discussion
ArchitectKeeping our backend microservices completely stateless makes horizontal scaling trivial.
DevAny server instance can process any incoming HTTP request.
Session handling
DevWhere should we store user session tokens if the app is stateless?
LeadIssue cryptographically signed JWT tokens or store session states in a shared Redis cluster.
Troubleshooting failover
DevOpsWhen server node B crashed, zero user sessions were lost.
LeadThat is the direct benefit of our stateless design.
Stateless servers scale easily because requests can be routed to any available machine without state synchronization overhead.